


space underneath my skin

by Katranga



Series: Season 2 Missing Scenes [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, comforting makeouts, is that a tag?, the beginning is so emo i'm sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 12:58:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11692122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katranga/pseuds/Katranga
Summary: Lance shifted his arm and Keith released him with a start. He was probably bruising him.Lance took his hand instead. Weaved his fingers through Keith’s, inextricably linked. Keith finally looked at him and Lance nodded, squeezed his fingers. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was there for Keith, just like when he told Lance he was Galra. There for him, as soon as he needed it.--Post season 2 finale. Keith is distraught at Shiro's sudden disappearance, but Lance is there to comfort him again.





	space underneath my skin

**Author's Note:**

> Lmaoo ok so I know I've got a multi-chapter I said I'd finish this week but I've had this like 98% finished for three months and the s3 premiere is in two days, which is gonna make this largely irrelevant so??? I figured out an ending and now here it is.   
> This is technically a follow-up to 'not one shred of who i'll be', wherein Lance comforts Keith about being Galra, so you might wanna read that first, but this can probably be read as a stand alone.  
> Title from Touch by July Talk.

An empty cockpit had never been so ominous.

“Where…?”

Keith heard somebody trail off, but he was too distracted by the black pilot’s seat, the black bayard, with no sign of the black paladin, to bother checking who spoke.

“Shiro?” Lance called, his voice echoing around the hangar. He was at Keith’s side, elbow brushing his. As usual, he was too optimistic for his own good.

Shiro wasn’t here. He was gone. And Keith didn’t even get a shitty excuse like last time, when the Garrison blamed his disappearance on pilot failure.

Shiro was just _gone_. Like’s Keith’s mom. Like his dad.

Why did he keep thinking he was entitled to an explanation? Why did he keep allowing his chest to ache with disappointment?

“Can anybody—” Pidge started. She shoved her helmet back on. Keith heard her shouting through it. “Shiro! Come in, Shiro!”

Keith swallowed thickly. He wasn’t going to respond.

He’d disappeared into space, just like Pidge’s brother and father.

That’s where everybody went, wasn’t it? They all ended up cosmic space dust. It was inevitable, one by one they’d all drift off to the stars, leaving Keith alone in the dark.

Keith reached out for whatever was closest to him—Lance’s wrist—and squeezed like his life depended on it.

“Hey man…” He could feel Lance’s eyes on him, but Keith couldn’t tear his gaze away from the black lion.

 _Where is he? Whereishewhereishe?_ Keith thought at her. _How could you let him go?_

She remained silent. A shell, a ghost.

Lance shifted in his grip and Keith released him with a start. He was probably bruising him.

Lance took his hand instead. Weaved his fingers through Keith’s, inextricably linked. Keith finally looked at him and Lance nodded, squeezed his fingers. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was there for Keith, just like when he told Lance he was Galra. There for him, as soon as he needed it.

“Maybe he’s…” Hunk ducked under the black lion, like Shiro might be playing hide and seek.

Allura nodded. “We should search the castle. To… to be sure. And I’ll contact the Blade of Marmora for any information.”

Like Shiro was going to be hanging out with them when his fucking lion was here.

“I’ll check the security cams,” Pidge said, already halfway out the door.

Coran was right behind her. “I’ll try to track the chip in his suit.”

Hunk nodded at Keith and Lance. He looked a little lost. “You guys wanna… check outside?”

“What, you think he fell _out_?” Keith’s voice was strangled. “Why are we—?”

Lance tugged on his hand gently. “Keith.”

Begging him to calm down because Shiro wasn’t there to do it.

His inability to deal was why he’d got kicked out of the Garrison. Shiro had disappeared and Keith exploded one too many times, with no one left to temper his outbursts or talk him down.

Would that happen again? Would they kick him out of Voltron, too? Him being Galra wasn’t quite enough to get rid of him, but blowing up at his friends at the drop of a hat could be the final straw.

“Let’s check his room,” Lance said.

“Really? Really, you think he’s gonna be in his room?”

But it wasn’t a suggestion Keith realized as Lance pulled him past a tense Allura, out of the hangar and into the hall. This time Keith didn’t stop him, just let Lance direct him where he wanted him to go.

He felt directionless. Aimless. A hot air balloon, a hot head, floating with no idea where to land. Lance’s grip on his hand felt like the only thing keeping him grounded.

They got to the dorm wing of the ship, peeking into every random room they passed on the way there.

Shiro wasn’t in his room. Obviously. He was…

Keith stood stock-still, staring at Shiro’s perfectly made bed. Crisp blanket. Army corners. A stack of empty juice packets piled up on his bedside table.

“Let’s look in the rest of the rooms,” Lance said.

Keith followed without a fight, hope lifting stupidly every time a door swished open, even though he’d have no reason to be in Allura’s room, or Pidge’s or anybody else’s. Even Keith’s.

Keith walked into his room, leading Lance for the first time in their futile quest, and slumped onto his bed.

Lance sat next to him, silent for once. It was a quiet sort of moment, a wordless type of situation. What do you say, when your rock disappears for the second time? And left the same world yanked out from under his feet feeling pulling at his stomach.

Anything he felt was just an absence. It wasn’t a churning, or a fire, or a swell, just an empty, hollow abyss that was reflected in Shiro’s lion.

Lance set their clasped hands on his knee. The movement jolted Keith out of his stupor.

He slipped his fingers from Lance’s, muttering, “Sorry.”

Sorry for clinging to him like a child. Holding onto him like he was all his had left.

Keith propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head in his hands. What was he supposed to do? What was there to do other than stare into space and let the dark, silent emptiness drain his hope? That was all life had done for him. Given him so much to hope for and then yanked it out from under him like a rug, again and again.

When was he going to stop hoping?

He tore off his chest armour, suddenly too heavy, leaving him in his sweaty black undershirt.

Lance dropped his onto the floor as well and then, without missing a beat, tossed an arm around Keith’s shoulders.

Keith leaned into his side the tiniest bit. He was warm and grounding and so tender without that armour.

“It’ll be okay,” Lance said.

“No.”

Lance waited a moment, and then shook his shoulder. “That’s all you got? _No_? That’s not much of an argument. I don’t think I believe you.”

The shake pulled Keith closer to Lance, so lining him up firmly against his ribs. Keith let himself rest comfortably there.

He dropped his head on Lance’s shoulder. “How is it going to be okay?”

Lance shifted, his nose in Keith’s hair for a second, breath streaming down his neck. Then he faced forward again. “We’ll find him.”

“How?”

“Space… tech. Our wits. I dunno, space isn’t that big. He has to be somewhere.”

Keith glared at him, their faces way too close. “No, he doesn’t. He could be—”

“Perfectly fine!”

“If he was fine, he’d be here. He wouldn’t have left me again—” He cut himself off. It wasn’t Shiro’s fault last time, or this time, and this wasn’t about Keith anyway.

He turned away to hide his face, but he couldn’t tear himself away from the steady comfort of Lance at his side.

“We’ll find him,” Lance said again, softer, like he was afraid to set Keith off. “C’mon, Pidge rigged up that space scanner in a junkyard and found us all in a couple of days. How hard can this be?”

The reminder of the time they all split down a wormhole comforted Keith until Shiro’s words from their time deserted on that alien planet came back to him. And their repetition just a few days ago, right before he found out he was Galra.

Shiro wanted Keith to lead in his absence.

Shiro was absent. Keith was supposed to lead.

“Shiro’s the irreplaceable part of the team.” Keith’s voice shook.

How do you replace the leader? The rock? The first person everyone turned to for direction?

How was _Keith_ supposed to take Shiro’s place? He couldn’t even—he’d just thrown a fit instead of taking any semblance of control of the situation.

“We’re not replacing him,” Lance said steadily, such a contrast to Keith’s shaky voice.

Keith faced him again, throat tight. “Lance, I…”

Lance’s jaw was set, but his eyes were gleaming with unshed tears. Keith only just noticed that part of the reason why he was so close to Lance was that Lance’s fingers were digging into his shoulder. His other hand was fisted on his thigh with the pressure it was taking him to keep the tears at bay.

Keith slid a hand over his fist and squeezed.

Lance’s hand bloomed open, and he slid his fingers through Keith’s again, locked tight.

The sensation that Lance was the only thing keeping him tethered intensified. Which was awkward, because it was Lance, but he didn’t know what he’d have done without Lance after finding out when he was Galra, forcing him to talk, annoying as it had been. Any spare thought in the following days had revolved around their hug and the swoopy feeling he got from Lance holding him that tight, stroking his hair and assuring him things would turn out okay.

Things had mostly picked up as usual between them, but any fighting stirred up between them in the preparation of the big fight had been more playful, no heat to their sniping. It was like they’d finally settled something between them.

Keith had been planning to catch Lance in a victory hug after they defeated Zarkon, the high of victory giving him the courage to initiate affection.

Well, he was getting that hug now, he thought dully.

He kind of wished he didn’t need the excuse of either a win or a horrible, world-flipping loss to tuck himself into Lance’s arms.

But for now, he did. And something nipping at the back of his throat insisted that the only way to make things better was to get even _closer_ to Lance. Which seemed like an impossible endeavour because they were already practically glued to each other’s sides, like they were the only things keeping the other in on piece, like if they moved even a millimetre apart the whole universe would collapse on itself.

It wasn’t enough.

Lance moved his arm, hooked it around Keith’s neck where he could brush his fingers through the hair curling over his ears.

Lance took a deep breath. Keith felt it skip on the way down.

“What?” Lance murmured, pretending he hadn’t been about to cry, and prompting Keith to finish a sentence he didn’t remember the ending to anymore.

Lance’s thumb brushed the shelf of his ear. Keith shivered. When he opened his eyes again Lance’s face was blurry-close and their noses were brushing.

Keith suddenly had a very good idea what craving to be closer to Lance meant.

Keith’s free hand found Lance’s shirt and twisted up in it. He tilted his head just a bit further, Lance’s warm breath washing over his lips before theirs touched. Soft, hesitant, before Lance responded by tangling his fingers in Keith’s hair and pressing impossibly closer.

His chest bloomed with a heat he couldn’t describe, but he knew Lance felt it too by the way he wrapped an arm around his back, splaying his palm between his shoulder blades in a move so comforting and sure it almost made Keith whimper.

Their kiss grew from hesitant to insistent in seconds.

Keith tilted his head like _Closer_? And Lance responded _Yes_ by parting his lips into a hot, open-mouthed kiss.

Breathy sighs and what _should’ve_ been gross smacking noises filled the small room.

Keith shifted, a hand on the back of Lance’s neck, guiding him down the bed until Keith was on his back and Lance was stretched out on top of him. And Keith groaned because yes, _yes_ this was right. Like some integral piece of reality was sliding into place. Lance’s warm, solid weight grounding him almost made him forget what a tragedy his life had turned into—or rather, was continuing to be.

Lance dropped hot kisses along his cheek, his jaw, his neck. Keith slipped a hand under Lance’s shirt, dragging blunt nails down his back.

He huffed a laugh into his ear. “Should’ve known you’d be rough.”

The scratchy timbre of Lance’s voice sent shivers down Keith’s spine, but he flattened his hand. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”

He brought his head up, pupils blown and lips swollen. “’S fine. Do what you want with me.”

“Jesus, Lance,” he groaned, yanking him back in for a searing kiss.

Keith tugged Lance’s shirt off, and Lance helped get Keith’s off, two actions that took an awful lot of time since they were both equally opposed to putting any sort of space between them.

Finally they were both shirtless, hearts pounding so near, and Keith tried to be gentle as he ran his hands over Lance’s newly exposed skin. Because this wasn’t a fight, or anything like one. It was something entirely new.

The intercom crackled and Keith’s nails bit into the flesh of Lance’s hip.

“Are you guys in _here_?” Pidge drawled through the intercom, bored.

Lance shot up and Keith followed like a magnet.

“Yeah, yeah, what’s up?” Lance asked, face upturned toward the intercom in the corner. “Did you find him?”

Pidge’s sigh rushed through the speaker. “No. Just here with an update.”

She explained how she’d scanned the area outside, and how Allura had talked to the Blade of Marmora, and everything everybody had tried and the end result was just. No. Shiro was nowhere to be found.

Which Keith knew already, but his stomach still dropped at the confirmation.

Lance pet the hair at the nape of his neck—it was getting sweaty—and said, “Is there anything we should be doing?”

Keith lifted his head, hopeful that there were actions he could take to fix this problem.

“Nah, just…” There was a muffled groan. Keith could picture her running her hands over her face, rubbing her eyes under her glasses in obvious exhaustion. “Not much we can do right now. Allura said to rest.”

“Does that mean you too?” Keith asked.

"I've been _resting_ on finding Matt and my dad this whole time, and look how well that’s turning out."

"We’ll find them," Lance said. He opened his mouth again and by the look on his face, Keith knew exactly what he was going to say. "Space isn't that big!"

"That joke was just as unfunny the first time you said it," Keith said flatly.

Lance squeezed his elbow, the closest body part to his hand, and the overwhelming emptiness Keith felt when he thought of the endless expanse of space abated just a bit.

He looked away from the shining sun of Lance and said, "Take a nap, Pidge."

"You take a fucking nap," she grumbled. "Over and out."

Lance snorted.

The last few days had been so busy, and none of them had got much sleep. And when Pidge missed out on hers, she got as grumpy as a little kid. She practically _was_ a kid; they all were.

How did Shiro expect him to lead them in battle when he couldn't even get a fourteen-year-old to take a nap?

"Gimme a sec," Lance said, slipping off the bed.

"Where—"

Lance only went as far as the intercom system next to the door. He flipped through the rooms. "Hunk?" No answer.

Keith leaned across the mattress, watching him scroll from Hunk's room to the kitchen.

"Hunk?"

"What's up, buddy?" Hunk's voice rang clear through the speaker.

"Pidge talk to you already?" Lance asked, crawling back onto the cot. He tucked himself under Keith's arm as if he'd done it a hundred times before.

"Allura did," Hunk said with a sigh. "You still with Keith?"

"Yeah, hey Hunk," Keith said. "Sorry for blowing up at you. Thanks for looking."

"No worries, man. It's been a rough couple days."

It has been a rough couple of days for as long as Keith could remember. It wasn't an excuse. He could get as bad as Pidge and he didn't even have the excuse of barely being out of pre-pubescence for his outbursts.

"Are you busy?" Lance asked.

"Just trying to stress bake," Hunk replied.

"Would you mind offering Pidge a patented Hunk cuddle so she'll relax for like ten minutes?"

"No problem. You want in on the action?"

"I'll catch one later," Lance said, snug against Keith's shoulder.

"Anytime. Over and out."

The intercom cut off and the room was left quiet, with Lance lounging against Keith's chest, minor problem solved with a few words.

"He wants me to lead," Keith said quietly.

He tilted his head. "What?"

"Shiro. He told me, twice, that if something happened to him he wanted me to lead."

Lance's body went rigid against him. He dropped his chin against his collarbone. "Of course. Of course he picked you."

"What's that mean? I shouldn’t be in charge."

"I agree."

Keith was unreasonably offended considering that Lance was agreeing with him.

Lance shifted away far enough to meet his eye. Keith glared at him, partly because of his comment and partly at the audacity of moving away.

"And you're not even honoured or whatever, either. That's—classic."

Keith reached for him when he started to move off the bed, but Lance shrugged him off.

"Don't get mad at me," Keith demanded.

"I'm not mad at you. I'm just—what are we doing?"

Keith drew away, folding his arms across his chest. "You didn't need a lengthy explanation thirty seconds ago. So I think you’re mad. What, you wanna be the leader? Go ahead. You'd be great at it."

He reached for his shirt, scowling. "Don't patronize me.”

Keith slapped the mattress. “I’m not!”

Why did Lance always have to do this? Take Keith’s words the worst possible way, just so he could start a fight. He couldn’t help but feel almost betrayed at this sudden turn, because they’d been on the same, glorious, heart-pounding page five minutes ago.

“You’re great with people,” Keith said, “when you’re not hitting on them or picking a fight.”

His brows rose to his hairline. “ _I_ pick fights? Is that a joke?”

“You’re doing it right now,” Keith accused. “We were…” He gestured spastically between them, indicating their mutual shirtlessness, their mussed hair, the _whatever_ they’d been engaging in.

Lance spread his arms, shirt still hanging from his hand. “Yeah?”

A lost puff of air left Keith. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what exactly he’d done wrong, why one second Lance was wrapped around him and the next he was snapping at him like it hadn’t happened.

And he didn’t know what he’d do if Lance left his room, if he’d sink into misery, drift away untethered and alone, or if he’d follow Lance out and ramp up the fight, goad Lance into paying attention to him just so he wouldn’t have to be alone.

But Lance didn’t leave.

He crawled back onto the bed after their weird staring contest and leaned against the wall. “Whatever, it’s stupid. Somebody has to be leader. And he likes you best.”

“He does not.”

“Really?” he drawled. “Then who’s his favourite?”

“Pidge,” Keith said after a moment of thought.

He snorted, the corner of his mouth tugging up.

Keith smiled back, and for just a second the emptiness threatening to drown him was edged away by light, by Lance.

Keith leaned closer, so their shoulders meet. “Lance, did I thank you for calming me down, when I told you I was Galra?”

Lance shrugged, shaking his head. “I doubt it. You were raised in the desert, you have no manners.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well I’m thanking you now. And.” He took a breath. “Thank you for being here for me again. Shiro usually—”

He bit his lip, the emptiness back and crawling up his throat at the mention of him.

Lance slipped his fingers into his, squeezing tight. “I’ll always be here for you.”

Keith offered a small smile.

Lance brought his other hand up, hesitating tucking a strand of hair behind Keith’s ear. Keith leaned into his touch, closing his eyes as Lance closed the distance. Something in Keith settled as their lips met—slow this time, no rush.

“We’ll find him, okay?” Lance said, pressing his forehead against Keith’s. “We’ll get him back. And until then, you’ve still got all of us. You’re not alone this time.”

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and nodded. He rested his hand over Lance’s beating heart and took comfort in the fact that Lance was right here, he was safe, he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Okay,” Keith murmured. “We’ll find him. I believe you.”

Lance pressed another tender kiss to his lips, and then one to his temple. “We’ll figure it out, I promise.”

He swallowed a yawn. “Nap first, though.”

His smile curved against his cheek. “See, you’re already so leaderly. You’re gonna be a natural.”

Keith scoffed a laugh as he settled back against the pillows, drawing Lance with him. “I think I’ll need your help.”

Lance laid his head on his chest. “You’ve got it. Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> If there were mistakes in this, I apologize, I'm very tired.  
> Thank you for reading, lemme know your thoughts!  
> Catch me on tumblr at [katranga.](http://katranga.tumblr.com)


End file.
